Over this past weekend (2-3 November 2024) I attended the Tassie Ham Conference that was held on the UTAS Campus.
The Biennial event has changed this year to be only presentations, where in previous years theres usually been a bit of an expo hall with the ability to buy equipment, along with a flea market between hams. While I appreciated the focus on the presentation, I did miss the opportunity to be able to purchase equipment (more on that later).
Presentation wise, things kicked off with a fantastic keynote from Dr Tamitha Skov (The Space Weather Woman) who spoke about Space Weather (surprise!), the recent solar cycle peak and how amateur radio is at the forefront of providing research and analysis of solar activity and how hobbyists have a part to play in informing both commercial businesses and the public.
What followed was a series of fantastic talks over two days, both technical and more general, with even some humour thrown in.
- Dr Tamitha Skov WX6SWW – Space Weather
- Rex Moncur VK7MO – Novel propagation – Lightning Scatter
- Martin Luther VK7GN – The Future of Contesting
- Andy Perryman NOAPX – World Radio League
- Murray Southwell VK7ZMS – If it works it’s not Stupid
- Kyle Krieg AAOZ – Remote Ham Radio (Flex Radio & NodeRed)
- Keynote 2: Dr Justin Thurley – Amateur Radio: an innovation perspective
- David Minchin VK5KK – 122/ 134/ 241 GHz Communications
- Marcus Berg VK3TST – Amateur radio and cybersecurity on the modern internet
- Phil Wait VK2ASD – EME/EMF/EMC/High Power Education
- Keynote 3: Kristen McIntyre, K6WX – Ground is a Myth
- Marty Nelson VK4KC – POTA
- Adam K6ARK – Quest for Miniaturisation
- Dr. Paris Buttfield-Addison VK7SYN – Al/Machine Learning & Radio
- Panel / Discussion Forum – The Secret to Energising Ham Radio
All these presentations were recorded and will be available over at Hayden VK7HH’s youtube channel, Ham Radio DX, in the coming days/weeks. (post will be updated with playlist when it becomes available
A couple of other happy things happened over this weekend, with the discovery that the PacComm TNC 320 I have been hunting for, for the last 6 months and assumed I had lent it out and lost it, was returned to me at the conference. I am ridiculously happy to get it back, and already it is back on air:
Also, a little bit of an impulse buy, but with the intent to help getting on air with POTA easier was the Mad Dog Coil 80m edition. This will allow me to mount a large vertical whip (5.6m/18.5′) on a camera tripod and be able to tune and transmit on 80m-10m.
This will have huge advantages as many of the portable locations I wish to operate typically are not great locations to run a long wire antenna. this set up will allow an almost zero horizontal footprint, with rapid set up and pack away. Having ordered the whip, I will have an update on this when I am ready to use.
So that was the weekend. Really good time, looking forward to the next one in 2025